Activated carbon and filters made therewith are well known in the art. Such filters conventionally comprise masses of activated carbon particulate that is loaded into a permeable frame with the combination of the permeable frame and the contained activated carbon particulate serving as the filtering medium. Alternative similar structures using gell forms of activated carbon are also well known. While such arrangements are entirely satisfactory for many applications and provide entirely satisfactory filtering of fluids, especially gases, their use is often cumbersome or expensive due to the requirement that the activated carbon particulate must be loaded into some kind of permeable frame or container to obtain the desired filter element. Additionally, since carbon particles are, by their very physical nature, “dirty” and dusty, i.e. friable and not particularly durable, the handling thereof for purposes of loading the filter element is at best inconvenient and time consuming and at worst dangerous and costly. This is particularly true in the case of smaller filter elements that require changing of the filter medium only occasionally, such as in the case of furnace filters for the home and the like.
Thus, the availability of a monolithic activated carbon filter material that provides all of the advantages of an activated carbon particulate filter, but does not require the handling of particulate carbon to obtain these advantages would be highly desirable. Such an activated carbon material available as a monolithic pre-sized element that can easily inserted into a duct or other fluid conduit would be highly useful.